Watch By the Time It Gets Dark - BFI Player

Anocha Suwichakornpong's mesmerising and innovative treatise on memory, politics and cinema.

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A ★★★★½ review of The Appointment (1982)

The atmosphere in this most British of supernatural horrors, is especially strong. Reminiscent of the early TV work of Kiyoshi Kurosawa and Alan Parker, the ever-mounting simplicity of this film gener...

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A ★★★★★ review of Lumière, Le Cinéma! (2024)

What a strange pleasure to see the origin of so much; to see one’s own cinematic eyes looking back at you through a selection of Lumière’s works from a century ago.

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A ★★★★★ review of Only God Forgives (2013)

The Oedipal nightmare in Refn’s film, displaying its aesthetic inheritance from Mario Bava, Lucio Fulci, as well as the austere Bresson/Dreyer geometry of camerawork and editing, makes for a riveting ...

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A ★★★★½ review of Elena (2011)

The externalising of the spiritual crisis at the heart of this film is well achieved, but what I find of interest on this second viewing of the film is its function within the film as metonymic for th...

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A ★★★★★ review of No Country for Old Men (2007)

An inspired choice for the film to only be composed of diegetic sounds. The immersive effect this imparts on the spectator’s experience is greatly appreciated; an appropriate evocation of tone, effect...

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A ★★★★ review of The Departed (2006)

Extravagant in its construction, this neo-noir melodrama balances its elements well, though the final coup de grace ending is, in my view, a gauche finish.

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A ★★★ review of Resident Evil (2026)

A well acted spectacle, though the structural repetition and quality of dialogue leaves much to be desired.

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A ★★★★★ review of The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

Demme’s steadicams and dollies are excellent, especially when counterbalanced by Howard Shore’s mellifluous strings.

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A ★★★★ review of Personal Shopper (2016)

Much like “məmorᴉa” (2021) from Apichatpong Weerasethakul, “Personal Shopper” is Olivier Assayas working out a drama/mystery, which in its aesthetics is tangential to the post-horror of the 2010s-2020...

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A ★★★★½ review of Unknown Pleasures (2002)

The mini dv cinematography allows for long takes amidst the sounds of Datong. In effect, a heightened realism is what the spectator becomes privy to, and the fictional narrative takes on a mythic tint...

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A ★★★½ review of Mouchette (1967)

A sharp evocation of space and the cinematic gaze.

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A ★★★½ review of Goodnight Mommy (2014)

The predominance of brightly lit scenes, and a spatialisation of sound almost always behind the frame are among the strong elements of this film, alongside its intelligent casting.

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A ★★★★ review of Rose (2026)

Similar aesthetic strategies as in François Ozon’s 2025 adaptation of “The Stranger”, and evincing the influence of Bresson, Haneke (Bresson’s Austrian son, in a way), and the Hungarian modernist dram...

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A ★★★★ review of Despair (1978)

Vulgarity and recrimination in this melodrama art film capture the spirit of Nabokov’s novel well, translating its linguistic slipperinesses into cinematic form through Fassbinder’s cross-cutting, and...

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A ★★★★★ review of Distant (2002)

I find the construction of space in this drama reminiscent of the proscenium, and as such, this neo-Bressonian simplicity focuses spectatorial attention on the emotional states of the characters to an...

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A ★★★★½ review of Love (2024)

Perhaps what I appreciate most about this trilogy is the way in which the irony of the performance of personal identity increasingly becomes the central axis by which these films turn. The spectator i...

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A ★★★★½ review of Dreams (2024)

Beautifully Rohmerian in parts, this film is structured in a manner akin to a Socratic dialogue. Yet once more, that dialogue crosses through the screen and through the formal juxtapositions and indet...

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A ★★★★ review of Exit 8 (2025)

A strong adaption of the video game into the cinematic form. The mix of steadicam and game aesthetics makes for an unsettling Möbius strip of a film. The choice to use Bolero as the principal music is...

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A ★★★★½ review of The Unfaithful Wife (1969)

Chabrol the master craftsman, French son of Hitchcock, guides the eye and the mind expertly in this tale of bourgeois menace. Incidentally, this film is the basis for much of Andrey Zvyagintsev’s 2026...

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A ★★★★★ review of Andrei Rublev (1966)

Astounding, what cinema can be! In the final section, “The Bell”, a microcosm of the film’s story and its meta production history are married together in this magnificently directed drama.

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